Spotlight

Spotlight Date: 28-July-02
Spoiler Rating: High

The Unbearable Lightness of Being (1988)

I first saw The Unbearable Lightness of Being when I was a junior in college, shortly after it came out. I remember walking away in a sort of trance, not sure I fully understood it but undoubtedly affected by its languid beauty, enticing sexuality, intensely personal stories, and suggestion of a deep, important truth. Fourteen years later, my second viewing produced almost the same sensation; so I must conclude that this is just a very fine film. Richly but sparsely written, slowly unraveled, and beautifully filmed and acted, this movie is a feast for the mind, body, and soul.

Based on a novel by Milan Kundera, the movie takes place in Prague, 1968, and centers around a young Czech doctor named Tomas. As played to simmering perfection by Daniel Day-Lewis, Tomas is gorgeous, intelligent, successful, and sexy, the epitome of sophistication and detachment. He has, in fact, made detachment his personal religion. Despite a steady diet of lovers and an ongoing affair with the equally sexy and freedom-loving Sabina (Lena Olin), Tomas masters his admitted fear of women and the uncertainty of life by eschewing any sort of commitment. He approaches his paramours with the same clinical and unemotional goodwill with which he is shown to perform brain surgery, humming contentedly to himself. His connection to the world is "light:" adamantly unattached to anything, he can come and go as he pleases, take or leave what he will, and feel only the trifling amount of guilt or regret his airy relationships demand.

This begins to change, however, when Tomas espies the lovely Tereza (Juliette Binoche) during a business trip to the country. Pursuing her as he does all attractive women, he is put off a bit when he discovers that her willingness to meet his advances stems from a naif's wish for experience and interaction with someone interesting, rather than a reciprocal desire for casual sex. Leaving her behind untasted, however, does not rid him of the temptation, for she shows up at his apartment in Prague a few days later, desperate for his attention and the new life she thinks he can offer. Thus, Tomas suddenly finds himself with a live-in lover and, before long, a wife — undoubtedly an attachment, although he continues to sleep with Sabina and everyone else he can get his hands on.

Whereas Tomas' approach to life is light, Tereza's is "heavy," as she herself admits. She is very sensitive and unable to resist becoming emotionally attached to other people (and animals). Unlike Tomas' profession, which allows him to interact with human beings in a detached fashion, Tereza's occupation as a photographer reflects her willingness to be personally acquainted with the pains and struggles of other people. (During the Russian invasion of Prague, wonderfully rendered in gritty, newsreel-like footage, she risks her life to capture images of her countrymen being threatened and injured by the invading military.) She knows about and suffers from Tomas' philandering and philosophy of remoteness, alternately trying to understand it, fight against it, and flee from it. Tereza's affection and devotion are visceral and all-encompassing, and bind her and those caught up in them to the responsibility, moral commitment, and potential pain of the human world.

Interestingly, although Tereza seems to have an accurate view of their disparate personalities, she believes that she is weak in her emotional attachment to the world and Tomas is strong in his distance from it. But is she right in this? After the invasion of their homeland, Sabina, Tomas, and Tereza all embark on journeys both geographic and personal, beginning in Geneva. Sabina acquires a new lover who appears perfect until he leaves his wife for her; she then literally runs away in fear and escapes to continue her rambling life in America. Tomas and Tereza, however, return to Czechoslovakia, first to Prague and then to the countryside, where, away from the cultured aloofness and myriad sexual temptations of the city, Tomas at last declares himself happy. Has he finally and bravely anchored himself to the world and found fulfillment there? As the unforgetably bittersweet ending reminds us, no one's attachments to life are that strong.

The Unbearable Lightness of Being is a thoughtful, erotic, and emotional film. Director Philip Kaufman and his cast are in top form, creating a story both sad and beautiful about the joys, demands, and limitations inherent in physical and emotional love.

Copyright © 2002 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.